Free Will Astrology

ARIES (March 21-April 19): “Everything is complicated,” wrote poet Wallace Stevens. “If that were not so, life and poetry and everything else would be a bore.” I hope you will choose his wisdom to serve as your guiding light in the coming weeks. It is high time, in my astrological opinion, for you to shed any resentment you might feel for the fact that life is a crazy tangle of mystifying and interesting stories. Celebrate it, Aries! Revel in it. Fall down on your knees and give holy thanks for it. And by the way, here’s a big secret: To the extent that you do glory in the complications, the complications will enlighten you, amuse you, and enrich you.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): This is one time when you can be both the river and the bridge. In fact, I strongly suggest that you make every effort to be both the river and the bridge. I’ll leave it up to you to interpret how this metaphor applies to your life, but here’s a clue to get you started. Be a force of nature that flows vigorously along even as you also provide a refuge for those who want to be close to your energy but are not yet ready to be inside it and flow along with it.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Almost exactly ten years from now, you will be blessed with an eruption of personal power that’s so crafty and so practical that you will be able to visualize a solution to a problem that has stumped you for a long time. It may take you months to actually carry out that solution in its entirety, but all the while you will have the luxury of feeling perfect certainty about what must be done. And you know what the weird thing is, Gemini? Something very similar is in the works for the next few weeks: an eruption of crafty, practical power that will help you materialize the key to solving an old dilemma, hopefully followed by months of carrying out your lucid plan.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Last night I had a dream in which I was addressing a crowd of thousands of Cancerians in a large stadium. I was referring to them as dolphins rather than as crabs. “I say unto you, my fellow dolphins,” I proclaimed (I myself was born June 23), “that you have been given a sacred assignment by the great gods of time themselves. And that assignment is to master the art of Timeology.” When I awoke from the dream, I was awash with feelings of deep relaxation and ease, although I wasn’t sure why. I had never before heard that word “timeology,” so I googled it. Here’s how the Urban Dictionary defined it: “spending time doing what you want to do, not accomplishing anything major but also not wasting time.” It so happens that this prescription is well-suited to our current astrological omens. I suggest that you and I be as playful as dolphins.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In an episode of the animated TV sci-fi series “Futurama,” we get to see inside the headquarters of Romanticorp, where “love research” is being done. One of the experiments involves robots delivering various pick-up lines to actual women. The line that works best is “My two favorite things are commitment and changing myself.” I recommend that you make that your own catchphrase, Leo—not just this week but for the foreseeable future. The entire year of 2010 will be an excellent time to deepen your commitments and transform yourself, and the weeks ahead will bring unprecedented opportunities to intensify those efforts.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers,” advises a passage in the Bible, “for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” While that’s always good counsel, it’s especially apt for you in the coming days. I believe you will come into contact with people who can provide you with valuable teaching and healing, even if they’re disguised as baristas or pet shampooers or TV repairmen—and even if this will be the one and only time they will provide you with teaching and healing.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Metaphorically speaking, you have recently begun crossing the water in a dream boat that has a small leak. If you keep going, it’s possible you will reach the far side before sinking. But that’s uncertain. And even if you were able to remain afloat the entire way, the shakiness of the situation would probably fill you with anxiety. My suggestion, then, is to head back to where you started and fix the leak.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Some Scorpios bring out the worst in people. Other Scorpios draw out the best. Then there are those members of your tribe who sometimes bring out the worst in their fellow humans and other times bring out the best. Where do you fit in this spectrum? Regardless of your position up until now, I’m betting that in the coming months you’ll be moving in the direction of bringing out more of the best. And it all begins now. To get the process underway, think of five people you care about, and visualize the wonderful futures that it might be possible for them to create for themselves.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): More than a few fairy tales feature the theme of characters who accidentally find a treasure. They’re not searching for treasure, don’t feel worthy of it, and aren’t fully prepared for it. They may initially not even know what they’re looking at, and see it as preposterous or abnormal or disquieting. Who could blame them if they ran away from the treasure? In order to recognize and claim it, they might have to shed a number of their assumptions about the way the world works. And they might have to clear up a discrepancy between their unconscious longings and their conscious intentions.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Everyone alive has some kind of learning disability. I know brilliant physicists who are dumb about poetry. There are fact-loving journalists whose brains freeze when they’re invited to consider the ambiguous truths of astrology. My friend John suffers from dyslexia, while I myself am incapable of mastering the mysteries of economics. What’s your blind spot, Capricorn? What’s your own personal learning disability? Whatever it is, this would be an excellent time, astrologically speaking, to work with it. For the next few months, you will be able to call on what you need in order to diminish its power to limit you.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “We cannot change anything until we accept it,” said psychologist Carl Jung. “Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.” Make that your hypothesis, Aquarius, and then conduct the following experiment. First, choose some situation you would like to transform. Next, open your heart to it with all the love and compassion you can muster. Go beyond merely tolerating it with a resigned disappointment. Work your way into a frame of mind in which you completely understand and sympathize with why it is the way it is. Imagine a scenario in which you could live your life with equanimity if the situation in question never changed. Finally, awash in this grace, meditate on how you might be able to actually help it evolve into something new.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): If you were going to launch a career as a rap artist any time soon, I’d suggest that maybe you use the alias “Big Try” as your stage name. If you were planning to convert to an exotic religious path and get a new spiritual name, I’d recommend something like “Bringit Harder” or “Pushit Stronger.” If you were about to join an activist group that fights for a righteous cause, and you wanted a new nickname to mark your transformation, I’d urge you to consider a tag like “Radical” or “Prime” or “Ultra.” And even if you’re not doing any of the above, I hope you’ll carry out some ritual of transition to intensify your commitment to your life’s vital dreams.